


multi-fandom ficlets & poems

by sharkfish



Series: ficlets & poems [3]
Category: Multi-Fandom
Genre: Poetry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-17
Updated: 2020-11-04
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:34:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 3,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22296391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sharkfish/pseuds/sharkfish
Summary: stories under 1k & sometimes poems
Series: ficlets & poems [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2086428
Comments: 8
Kudos: 6





	1. REDEMPTION (a red dead redemption poem)

**Author's Note:**

> red dead redemption is the only video game i ever loved, so i wrote these poems (with inspiration from the gunslinger as well) ages ago. it appears i wrote one, decided i didn't like it, and wrote an alternate version with some of the same phrasing but... different. now i think i like both.

"REDEMPTION"

I

i rode the wild west on a  
horse with no name, because in  
the wild west, the herds run plentiful  
so it was utterly dispensable.

i slung guns and dealt in lead  
the messy bird blooms in flight  
of bullet meeting flesh: a blossoming  
bloodstain around a belt buckle, like the  
wings my bounty believed would take him  
back to his god

we were both bandits and i could spare a little  
kindness to get me through this life, so i did not mention  
that the angels in his vision were just the fade-to-grey  
as his brain died. i took what i could from the body  
the same way religion takes what it can from the living.

II

i thought of ammunition as my peregrine falcons,  
precision bombers in a time before smart missiles  
and i crossed my chest with their feathers  
like a prayer.

still, they left me restless and stranded.

III

the desert was wild and i won my place there with  
a long bladed knife in a duel against a lioness  
she had the eyes of all the women i’d ever left and  
it felt like the first time my father was ever disappointed in me  
when i killed her. she left me with scars like accusations  
across my face and i used her pelt as a blanket.

we are not even. we are odd, a revolver with  
seven cylinders so i save the last round for myself.  
just in case.

the lionesses talk and put a bounty on my own head  
so i can’t leave the saloon sober any longer,  
afraid of what’s coming to me: a wild west  
outlaw with a mouth full of fear  
like the sand that sticks to your teeth after  
a nameless horse throws you.  
she saves the best bucks for last.

IV

i called my new horse christ the redeemer.

together we were red-bellied piranhas, flesh-stripping teeth  
to match our hunger for humans. the places we pretended  
to be someone else followed like ghosts.  
we shot ourselves farther west, a trail of gore gardens.

we made songs out of coyotes. we pronounced it like  
the white men we were: _kai-oat,_ the quick-ended  
draw-BANG of a duel.

even my shark-tooth steed ate well those nights.

V

when i die, i hope they put ka on my tombstone  
i hope they remember that i cried when i saw my first  
ghost town, all that progress turned ramshackle hideout  
i knew those buildings like they were made by my own hands,  
every misplaced nail and broken board.

i hope they say that i rode my horse hard, even  
on the good days. i hope they remember that i paid  
my debts, even to all the dead men i made. i hope  
they say i left with dignity solid on my back.

i chose this life, the one  
my preacher warned me about.

* * *

"REDEMPTION" (ALTERNATE)

I

They call a group of crows a murder  
but it’s the vultures that circle after.

I found the body among the sand.  
Not dead, but close. Gutshot,  
they did him, his hands all bloody  
and shaking, trying to push his insides  
out of the desert air.

I approached cautiously. His lips  
moved in prayer, asked me for God,  
asked the Lord to be his shepherd.

There’s no god here.  
I’ve looked, but you can’t find one at all  
not among the indians whose land we ride on,  
not in the wolves whose skins we wrap ourselves in,  
certainly not in the creak as I thumbed back the hammer  
on my pistol.

I let the main believe in mercy. I put my hand on his shoulder  
and said, “Easy, friend,” as if I was talking to the horse I  
rode back then, a mare painted the color of cougar.

“Easy, friend,” I said, and I shot him.

He had nothing left for me to take, so I left  
flesh and bones for the vultures of murder  
circling above.

II

To name a thing is to love it and to love is to lose,  
so I did not think of the cougar-mare as anything but the horse,  
a machine of tendon and gristle that moved me from one place  
to the next. I’d seen broken cars abandoned to rust  
next to a pit-falled road but the horse could smell danger  
and alert me in the tense drumskin of her shoulder.

I preferred mares the same way most men  
didn’t trust them, couldn’t trust something  
they suspected might be smarter.

My first love was named Jane.  
She was a tuxedo among outlaws. I fed her  
grain from out of my hand and kissed the lopsided  
diamond on her forehead. I was not embarrassed.  
She was a strong and tender thing.

We were galloping for the joy of it: the cool  
air of the desert at night, the lizards venturing  
from under their rocks. Her hooves on the packed dirt  
were a symphony to me, bent low over her neck,  
whipped in the face by her will.

She put a foot in a snake hole.  
I ate dirt, tumbled head over foot over head  
into a cactus that latched its spines into mine.

Even when I caught my breath, Jane had not  
moved from where she fell. She lifted her head  
to me but even in the dark I could see her leg  
in shambles, a wrecked twisted bone of a thing.

There’s no poetry in the way it felt to end her.

III

I sling guns and deal in lead,  
the messy bird-blooms of a bullet  
meeting flesh, those red wings spreading  
like angels across a dirty shirt.

I kill bounties so they don’t have a chance to kill me.  
My pockets always jingle. When a loose woman asks  
what I’m looking for, I tell her I stopped seeking  
a long time ago.

I want to tell her I cried when I saw my first ghost town,  
those buildings all ramshackle like they were made  
with my own hands, every broken board and misplaced nail.  
I knew them that way, like we were brothers.

IV

When my ticket finally comes up,  
I won’t have any use for sheep herders  
or jealous gods. I’ll face it like a man,  
my dignity solid on my back.

I chose this life, the one  
my preacher warned me about.


	2. AN UNREMARKABLE WIZARD (a harry potter poem)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> harry is not the hero.

there was magic inside you, or so  
they said. built of death and flame,  
evil buckshot through your heart.   
you never deserved it, an idea kept  
quiet on serpent tongues. the magic was  
that they believed in you, destroyed by  
your own hubris. 

you were born of broken glass. born  
with an end in mind, in a smoky tavern  
surrounded by people with their   
faces hidden. they were listening. 

you were never loved by people  
who knew you. no one saw the   
nothing-special of your heart. you were   
a story about a cherry tree, where only  
strangers could have faith in you. 

it could’ve been someone else. you  
could’ve lived a normal boring life and  
hurt no one. you don’t think about it,  
because you so rarely think about   
anything at all. women came and  
went after they saw what lay  
inside you. you were a death-  
bringer without intention. 

you live surrounded by ghosts, all the people  
you let down, all the faceless horrors that  
you never look back on. among all the  
dying, you live guilt-free and  
without worry. 


	3. WE ARE LEGEND (i am legend - film)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She, the one I run with under the moonlight, just because we can. She, the one who comforts me when another of us disappear into the hands of a human. She, my heart-holder. Taken.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the director's cut of _i am legend_ is the only valid version.

There is burning during the day and communing at night. We connect in buildings that used to belong to humans and now belong to the dark. We stand hunched together in a circle, sharing thought. Sharing feelings. Sharing ourselves. We don’t have to hold hands because the magic connects us, a glowing circle invisible to all but us. 

The war with humans is all but over. We started it in the days of nothing but fever and rage, and we’ll finish it — at least in our little corner of the planet — with a single execution. 

At night we track the scent of the ones he’s taken, but he knows too much. The trail always fades and dies. We never see those loved ones again. 

And then She is is the one tricked into a sack. She, the one I run with under the moonlight, just because we can. She, the one who comforts me when another of us disappear into the hands of a human. She, my heart-holder. Taken. 

Gone forever unless we do something. 

The human makes the mistake of staying out into the night, perhaps thinking that his vehicle will protect him. It doesn’t, but he slips through our fingers again. I can’t help the howl of anguish when they share what happened. 

We take the human’s hint and cover ourselves in sacks to follow him in the daylight. Careful creeping, ducking behind long-abandoned cars and crumbling debris. The sunlight hurts but doesn’t kill like this. We find where he locks himself at night. We wait until full dark before the next phase of our plan, asking those in surrounding communities to join us. They’re not _one_ with us, but we’re connected closely enough that they arrive just after the sun setting. 

We all commune together, a circle so big that we leave the comfort of our home to spread out across the street. We share thoughts, we share love. They all see Her as I do, so beautiful among the wreckage. 

There are casualties, but there’s more than enough of my brethren remaining to storm into the house. We find no sign of Her anywhere, until I notice another door. It’s difficult to break through but I have no interest in thinking about the cuts on my body. We heal fast. 

Three humans and She are hidden behind another piece of glass. At first it seems to be impenetrable. All of us howl with my grief while the human threatens to shoot us. I would die for Her. I would go to hell with the humans if I knew She was safe. 

Somehow the human sees my devastation. Maybe hears it in my desperation to touch Her again, to feel Her mind touch mine. I don’t trust the human, but I warn the rest not to touch him as he wheels Her out on a stretcher. I croon to her, but her eyes stay closed and She doesn’t reply. 

We’ll kill him. We’ll rip out his throat and revel in his tears as he dies. We’ll do the same to the woman and child behind the glass. He’s a death-bringer and should lose everything he loves.

I let him touch Her, even let him stick a needle in her thigh. He looks afraid, but under that, a deep guilt and deeper sorrow. He looks at the collection of pictures of those he killed on the wall. His eyes are wet. 

She wakes. She nuzzles against me and holds me close. She says, _You came for me._ She says, _I love you._ She says, _Take me home._

She fits small with hunger into my arms. The human is no longer afraid but resigned, accepting of his fate. He knows he deserves it. 

But we’re not fevered and feral anymore. I know his work is finished. With a final warning shout, we leave for home. 


	4. MEDDLESOME (poem inspired by firefly)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“People don't like to be meddled with. We tell them what to do, what to think. Don't run, don't walk. We're in their homes and in their heads and we haven't the right. We're meddlesome.”_  
>  river tam

one day i woke up and the world  
was gone, all the streets shattered and  
haunted by dead bodies and  
hungry gods. the sky was   
clear except a single cloud i  
thought was shaped like a unicorn.

the world was gone or maybe  
it had just moved on from me,  
a broken ghost wandering where  
my feet wanted to go. 

the looming city was populated with  
singing birds. i don’t know how they got  
there or if they were just taunting  
spirits but i loved them all the same. my  
mother used to keep parakeets, before  
she was just another corpse.

i sat inside my favorite bar, the other  
patrons grey and slumped in their  
seats, some with full drinks still in-hand.  
i said  _ jack and coke, make it a   
_ _ double  _ and pretended the bartender  
was the one pouring. 

i’m the only person left with the  
ambition to live, but some nights i  
lay in bed and think i hear ships passing  
through the atmosphere. 


	5. STITCH BY STITCH (the walking dead poem)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> they speckled you black and  
> blue and called it love. they  
> left you alone to trap your  
> own meals and called it  
> a lesson. you built your own  
> wings, stitch by stitch into the  
> leather of your spine. someday,  
> you thought, you would fly away  
> from here. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a daryl dixon poem

it happened when you  
were born. or maybe before,   
because the south was   
written into your dna.

they speckled you black and   
blue and called it love. they   
left you alone to trap your   
own meals and called it   
a lesson. you built your own   
wings, stitch by stitch into the   
leather of your spine. someday,   
you thought, you would fly away   
from here. 

you follow tracks because your  
own feet can’t take you anywhere   
you’d like to be. they taught you   
that you’re nothing but death, a   
destroyer with rudimentary weapons. 

loose women never caught your  
eye, unless they were pointed out.  
until there was an implication of _a  
_ _real man chases tail._ like you hadn’t  
been on the tail-end of running your whole  
life. you ran with wolves. 

there was no need to be  
surprised when all of your regrets  
started rising, bloodthirsty and  
venomous. your family’s faces  
were everywhere, but you stopped  
hesitating to pull the trigger. the  
recoil didn’t hurt anymore, your  
shoulders scarred from their   
clumsy attempts to send you  
through the world unscatched. 

in the end,  
the dead were better  
companions than your  
kin anyway. 

  
  
  
  



	6. WITH LOVE, FROM RACHEL (the walking dead poem)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in the beginning you remembered their names. after  
> the second death you dug their wallet out of their pocket  
> and whispered it to yourself. _wayne dunlap. twenty-eight_  
>  _dollars and sixty-three cents in his pocket. a picture of a pretty_  
>  _girl tucked behind his license. on the back it says with love,_  
>  _from rachel._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> guess what i'm rewatching for the millionth time.

in the beginning you remembered their names. after   
the second death you dug their wallet out of their pocket   
and whispered it to yourself.  _ wayne dunlap. twenty-eight   
_ _ dollars and sixty-three cents in his pocket. a picture of a pretty   
_ _ girl tucked behind his license. on the back it says with love,  
_ _ from rachel.  _

_ mcashleigh pickle,  _ you whispered, not even bothering  
to think how odd names could seem in the before. now   
names only exist for hasty crosses planted in the dirt where they  
fell.  _ keys on a lanyard around her mottled grey neck, iphone   
_ _ in her pocket.  _ that gives you pause. most people pulled them   
out right away, dropped them in the trample of the dead. you’ve walked   
places where there’s the crunch of a screen underneath your boot every  
other stride. 

_ lana sing. born 1983. a starbucks gift card in her wallet, a sticky note  
_ _ listing the balance of $3.24, not even enough for a latte.  _

_ steven kowalczyk, far from his home state of new york.  _

some guy in a janitor’s uniform. 

a kid you don’t want to remember anything about. 

you lose track of your kill count and you lose track of who is a   
person, who used to be a person, if anyone ever was in  
the first place. the gore of post-death is nothing compared to the  
cruelty of the living. those are the names you’d rather forget. 

_ philip blake, who may have been an honorable man in another  
_ _ life, who was never made to stand sane through the grief and  
_ _ terror.  _

_ merle dixon, who was never taught that no man is an island, who  
_ _ would rather die alone than show weakness.  _

_ shane walsh, who pinned a metal badge over his heart just so he  
_ _ could play cowboy, whose finger twitched on the trigger every time   
_ _ he imagined being a hero.  _

_ negan, who never believed people deserved names even in the  
_ _ before, who never knew what love or anything else felt like.  _

_ lizzie samuels, who would have hid her eyes behind thick smudged  
_ _ eyeliner and listened to sad songs on repeat in a different world, who   
_ _ instead handed herself to the monsters without being asked.  _

you, who no longer deserves a cross over fresh-packed earth,   
who never stopped to wonder about all the people trying to   
forget your name. 


	7. I-75 (the walking dead poem)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the highways are mass graveyards

the highways are mass graveyards  
covered in pink backpacks embroidered  
with names like _hannah_ and _avery._ how do  
people lose shoes while running? suitcases  
full of grandma’s china and video games,   
coolers with dr. pepper and beer like the idea   
that water may be scarce ahead never even  
occurred to the want-to-be evacuators. 

and the dead themselves. lucky ones  
mummified in their sensible cars, georgia  
heat glaring through grimy windshields. less  
lucky ones are torn apart, the pieces of their  
bodies a jigsaw puzzle that can’t ever be solved.  
least lucky ones who turn when they hear frantic  
breathing and reach with limbs heavied by   
rigor mortis. they move like ghosts from  
graveyard to graveyard, shedding the parts  
that marked them human back when they   
traveled with purpose. a shirt, a wallet. a   
hand with a three carat engagement ring that   
can’t be taken to the afterlife.

once the context is lost bumper stickers  
don’t mean anything. _OBAMA BIDEN 2008.  
__If Jesus had a gun, he’d still be alive today.  
__LEGALIZE GAY MARIJUANA._ a picture  
of a blue phone booth. a cartoon kid pissing  
on a horse head that must have been a logo.   
the word _COEXIST_ spelled in old-world  
symbols. _I DOWNLOADED THIS CAR._

most of the animals stay away, no birdsong  
for miles but every now and then a rabid coyote  
stumbles across with gore-crusted fur and  
a hungry belly, looking for a meal. 


	8. WISHES (a haunting of hill house poem)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"when i said i haven’t ever seen any ghosts, that’s not exactly true. i’ve seen a lot of ghosts. just not the way you think. a ghost can be a lot of things. a memory, a daydream, a secret. grief, anger, guilt. but in my experience, most times, they’re just what we want to see…. most times, a ghost is a wish.”_ (steven crain)

i’ve seen a lot of ghosts. they’re  
like wishes but sometimes they’re  
poems that haunt houses like tear-  
stained glasses sticking to your  
eyelashes. ghosts are stories and  
like the wind they guide us, they’re  
all unfinished walls between you  
and the beast. 

ghosts are like wishes but sometimes  
they’re like horses, the kind entering  
your bloodstream through a needle,  
sometimes ghosts are marks tracking  
up and down your arm looking for  
the part of your heart that hasn’t  
yet collapsed. 

ghosts are the wishes for bedtime  
stories back before you knew about  
nightmares. ghosts are like a hand  
seared to a hot stovetop, something  
you always wish you can take back. 

ghosts are the silence right before the  
clock strikes midnight. ghosts are hushes  
in the dark, a funeral where family stands  
up and talks about someone who never  
was. someone we’re never without, because  
ghosts are a place we all must go someday. 

ghosts are headaches, greedy stomachs  
and wallets, fears and hangovers and  
memories at the tip of your tongue, unwritten  
histories because the written version is  
all lies and half-truths. 

i’ve seen a lot of ghosts, but the one  
that haunts me the most is a red door  
without a key.

**Author's Note:**

> [reallyelegantsharkfish on tumblr](http://reallyelegantsharkfish.tumblr.com)


End file.
